NEW YORK--(BUSINESS WIRE)--The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee’s newest email spam, asking their recipients to sign a petition calling for sponsors to end their relationship with The Rush Limbaugh Show, is based on the two-year old Stop Rush political protest as its inspiration. After an investigation, The Rush Limbaugh Show has discovered a far darker story to Stop Rush, and is today releasing the hidden story of the people and motives behind the Stop Rush conspiracy.
The Stop Rush group claims to be made up of ordinary consumers unhappy with Rush Limbaugh’s comments. The group claims to be “grassroots,” just concerned consumers who won’t shop at businesses that advertise with Rush Limbaugh. In truth, however, there are no potential customers here, just a small number of hardcore political activists founded by Angelo Carusone, EVP of Media Matters for America.
It’s remarkably tiny. Only 10 Twitter users account for almost 70% of all StopRush tweets to advertisers, amplified by illicit software. In addition, almost every communication from a StopRush activist originates from outside the State of the advertiser. Thus, these activists are not and never would have been customers… their only role is to harass small businesses in an attempt to interfere with their operations, as long as they are advertising with Rush.
“A small number of politically motivated out-of-state activists are distributing target lists indiscriminately, and annoying small businesses until they give up the advertising deals that help them grow, or risk being unable to conduct business at all. It’s not even activism… it’s blackmail,” according to Brian Glicklich, Rush Limbaugh Show spokesperson.
How does this small group make themselves look so much bigger than they actually are? According to The Rush Limbaugh Show, Stop Rush has deployed custom automated tweeting software, in violation of Twitter’s rules, that lets their activists send tweets at a rate far faster than any unassisted person could do manually. They send barrages of thousands of messages through this software until advertisers are bullied and harassed into cancellation.
These activists have long operated in secret and anonymously, the show says. But now, The Rush Limbaugh Show has the results of an investigation that names the people tweeting, facebooking, and emailing small businesses with harassing and bullying messages over and over until they surrender. These names are surprising, and include a professor at Kent State University using her official email account to badger advertisers.
The full hidden story of Stop Rush and the names of its most active harassers are at http://www.rushlimbaugh.com/daily/2014/09/23/the_hidden_story_behind_stop_rush